Happy 15th birthday, free Qt

Posted May 25, 2015 11:15 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Happy 15th birthday, free Qt by rahulsundaram
Parent article: 20 years of Qt

> if you claim today that Qt was open source from the beginning, that is just a historically inaccurate statement.

No it's not.

THE SOURCE IS OPEN. Which is why I always use capitals when I'm talking about stuff that matches the OSI definition. Because - if the words mean what they are supposed to mean - ANY and ALL software provided in source form (regardless of licence) is "open source" - the source is open for you to look at! That's what the words meant back then, and it really doesn't help matters when people try to change what words mean.

English is enough of a mess with too many words and not enough understanding as to what they mean, without people trying to retrospectively rewrite the dictionary ... (and there are enough of those :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Happy 15th birthday, free Qt

Posted May 25, 2015 15:52 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

The English language doesn't require capitals for terms, so that distinction doesn't work.

If someone applied that rule while reading English, their head would be full of ridiculous ideas.

Happy 15th birthday, free Qt

Posted May 25, 2015 22:19 UTC (Mon) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (1 responses)

> The English language doesn't require capitals for terms, so that distinction doesn't work. If someone applied that rule while reading English, their head would be full of ridiculous ideas.

http://www.irs.gov/irb/2005-14_IRB/ar13.html

Happy 15th birthday, free Qt

Posted May 25, 2015 23:01 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Yes, that's another reason why the proposed distinction is impractical: if someone believes there's a difference between "open source" and "Open Source", but they shout in all caps, how is anyone to know what is meant by "OPEN SOURCE"?